It’s a quiet, early Saturday morning, save for the lone bird that keeps chirping like its lost a mate or a child.
It’s on the verge of chilly here in the Deep South. The bricks underneath my bare feet are cool, unlike the warm temperature they’ve been all summer. The flowers I planted back in the spring, though still full, are starting to fade. I suppose I’ll dig up the roots and plant some mums soon.
My spoiled cat, an indoors pet, has joined me on the front porch. She likes to roll around on the concrete and explore the front-yard world from the safety of the steps. She’s managed to cover her fur in glitter from where my seventeen-year-old daughter camped out on the porch last week to make decorative footballs for herself and her friends to wear on game days.
I sip my hot coffee and check Twitter, where I see another friend has been asked to step down from her church position because she is LGBT affirming. The passage of Scripture I read before crawling out of my cozy bed this morning comes to mind. It was about false teachers and love and fear. Its meaning is far different for me now than it was a few years ago. These days, I read with new eyes and understanding.
I pick up my phone and read the chapter again. I John 4. In the past, I would’ve interpreted the words quite differently than I do now. It’s funny how love will change your perspective on just about everything. I read once again about being wary of false teachers because the Voice inside us is stronger than any other voice.
As I hastily click alphabet letters on my keyboard, a bird flies so close overhead that I feel the breeze from its wings. It’s a surreal split second, and I imagine that’s how it is when the Spirit blows and speaks.
There is no room in love for fear, John says. I think about the Nashville Statement that evangelicals published last week in condemnation of sexual and gender preferences other than the ones they hold to, and I understand now that it was written out of fear. Fear leads folks to judge one another and call it some form of love. But that’s not love. Fear causes people to feel like they must warn others of some scary, eternal torment as a catalyst for what they’ve determined is obedience. That’s not love.
A flock of birds has arrived in the trees across the street and are making so much of a ruckus I can barely concentrate. They remind me of clanging cymbals.
John goes on and on about how perfect love includes loving everyone. It leaves no room for a fearful life. I suppose that probably means a truly loving church wouldn’t be afraid of loving the LGBT community and those who affirm them. That’s just my take from John’s words on a fall-like Saturday morning.
The birds quiet down, and the cat rolls around, and I start to make a list of foods I need to get from the grocery store before college football comes on TV later in the day. Life goes on, but a piece of my heart will be with another friend who’s been wounded by the church.
